


In loco parentis

by posingasme



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Big Brother Dean, Blood and Injury, Father Figures, Gen, Hunters & Hunting, Hurt Sam Winchester, No Slash, Protective Bobby Singer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-26
Updated: 2016-04-26
Packaged: 2018-06-04 16:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6665932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/posingasme/pseuds/posingasme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The boys might have grown up great. They might have grown up heroes. But they're still Bobby's boys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In loco parentis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shaindy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaindy/gifts).



> In response to prompt for paternal Bobby being there for Sam.

“Get me that! Gotta get his temperature down! I can stem the bleeding.”

“Bobby! Bobby, he's-”

“I see it, boy! Dean. Dean, look at me! Look at me. I need you to pull it together. That thing ain't going to let Sam make it out of here, so you gotta get your head right, and you gotta wipe it out. Long as it's still got its head, it's got your brother. You understand me?”

Dean was nodding frantically. Fear was trickling out his eyes in tears. “God, Bobby.”

“You know what it's gonna do. Hey! Look at me. You know what it's going to do. We ain't talking about no peaceful death here, boy. Your brother is gonna suffer, and suffer bad.”

The younger man moaned out his heartbreak and frustration.

“Thing’s in your head, Dean, and you know it. But you gotta pull together for your brother. I ain't much for running on a broken leg. It's gotta be you. Kill this thing. I'm with Sam, and he’ll be fine just so long as you kill this thing. Keep your head right!”

It was almost nausea on Dean’s face now, but he nodded. “I got this. Don't you let him die. Bobby, don't you lose my brother!”

Bobby gripped Dean’s arm. “Go,” he ordered.

He watched Dean stumble from the cabin, and sighed. He knew what an impossible task he had just given the man. Just facing this creature, considering what it was doing to Dean’s mind, would be too much for any average hunter. But Bobby had long since stopped thinking of Dean and Sam Winchester as average hunters. In fact, they were the best hunters Bobby had ever known. They had done the impossible before. With a little luck and a solid slice of a machete, they would live to do so again.

The older man looked down at his charge, who was burning up and seizing with pain in his lap.

The truth was that he had never seen these boys as average hunters. They weren't average anything. They were his boys. And losing them would rip his heart out like no monster ever could. It would be the only thing that could come close to the loss of Karen.

God, Karen would have loved these boys.

Singer’s Salvage was little more than his cover business anymore, though he tinkered while solving mental puzzles for other hunters most days. But salvage was what he did, and these boys had needed him to salvage them from the wreckage that framed their childhoods.

“Shh, Sam. I got you, boy. I ain't leaving you. Dean’s gonna be just fine, and he's gonna kill the son of a bitch that done this to you. I got you, boy.”

Gray hazel eyes stared up at him in terror, and the agony Bobby could see there was excruciating. Yet, in spite of all of it, the worst came when Sam managed to spit out words with his blood; it broke Bobby's heart in ways he feared couldn't be healed. “Don't...give up on me...Uncle Bobby,” he sobbed through clenched teeth reddened by blood.

The family moniker had not been used in years, and it punched him in the chest to hear it now. The older man sniffed back his own tears with determination. “I told you once, Sam. I ain't never giving up on you. Don't ever even think it, boy. We're family.”

There was never a time that word wasn't magic to these poor boys. Bobby Singer had shot his father to protect his mother, who had hated him for it. He had killed his wife. Twice. These boys had lost their mama long before they knew anything about her, and their father had been lost on the very same day, replaced by an obsessed drill sergeant who loved them but who had nothing left to give them. These boys knew nothing about family.

That's why they needed each other so badly.

***

Sam glowered down at the floor, his face twisted in stubborn defiance. His breath came out in sharp huffs through his nose.

Uncle Bobby was shaking his head at him. “Sam, you got the devil in you, you know that, boy?” he sighed.

“Yes, sir,” the child snapped as a parody of obedience.

He sighed again and reached for his shoulder.

Sam’s right arm flew up to block aggression that never came. When he realized he was in a defensive fighting stance, he took a step back and swallowed hard. “Sorry,” he mumbled.

“You want to fight me, kid?” Uncle Bobby said with a sadness in his tone. “Come on. That the only way we can do this? Two smart guys like us, we can't just talk it out? You want to have it out instead? Well, come on. Hit me. But the first one best knock me out,” he warned.

Sam considered. He wanted to hit the man, he realized. That thought shamed him into standing the way he had been taught, feet planted at shoulder-width, hands clasped behind his back, chin and eyes up and forward. His jaw might still be clenched, but at least he wasn't an instant away from throwing a punch. “No, sir,” he spat through trembling lips.

Uncle Bobby nodded. He took his cap off and put his hand through his hair, then ran it down his scruff. “Sam, I know what it's like to want to run. You get all coiled up inside, thinking nothing's gonna get better. Well, it ain't.”

The boy’s eyes widened. “That supposed to be my pep talk?”

He gestured to the broken down old couch, and they each sat awkwardly. “Sam, it ain't gonna get better, and I ain't gonna lie about it. You think your daddy would have trained you up a fighter if he didn't think you'd have to fight your whole damn life? No. I don't know if I'd have done it different. Maybe yes and maybe no. But I can tell you life's a bitch whether you're a hunter or a mechanic, a kid or a geezer. And running can solve a lot of problems for a couple minutes, but it don't really solve nothing for good, does it?”

Sam hung his head, leaning his elbows on his knees. “No, sir,” he relented miserably. “Especially not if you and Dean keep finding me. And especially not if Dad…” He shrugged. “I'm sorry, Uncle Bobby. I just...Can I tell you a secret? And you never tell anybody ever?”

A noncommittal grunt was the best he could get.

“I kissed a girl. Turned out it wasn't a girl. It was a monster. And...and I hate being a hunter. Dad and Dean, they need me, but they don't let me do the things-”

“You say you kissed a monster?”

Sam squeezed his eyes shut. “Uncle Bobby, please.”

The old man watched him for a while, then shrugged. “Okay. Okay.”

“I'm never going to be normal. Am I?”

The way the man sighed brought tears to Sam's eyes.

“Yeah. That's what I thought.” Sam looked around at the abandoned barn he had camped in for four nights before Bobby had found him. He picked up his bag, and trudged to the old truck waiting outside. Before climbing in, he spoke up without meeting Uncle Bobby's worried gaze. “You gonna tell Dad?”

“I don't think that's necessary. So long as we're clear about one thing.”

“No more running?”

When he looked up, Uncle Bobby was in his space, wrapping strong arms around him. “Sam, no matter where you go, or what happens, I ain't never gonna stop looking out for you, boy. Count on it.”

Sam closed his eyes and held on tightly. He had been so lonely these past few days. These past few years. It felt too good to be held by someone he knew loved him. “Don't give up on me, Uncle Bobby,” he whispered.

“Never, kid,” he promised.

***

Bobby's leg was throbbing, but he didn't feel the pain. He might have attributed it to shock if he weren't so alert. He had gotten Sam's bleeding under control, but the young man was still burning up inside. He shivered relentlessly in Bobby's grasp.

“You got enormous, kid,” he teased gently. He was holding Sam against his own warmth, and he stroked sweaty hair from his boy's face unceasingly. “You're bigger than your brother and your daddy both. Surprised us all the way you grew into those feet of yours, like a damn puppy.”

The hazel eyes were dulling with exhaustion and pain, but they continued to watch him.

Bobby made himself keep talking. “I remember the very minute it occurred to your brother that you were going to be taller. He was standing in my kitchen, eating me outta house and home, sifting through my cupboards for something to eat at the same time as he was shoving food in his mouth. Like nothing I ever saw, that boy. Then you come in outta the study, and you're about half asleep after a long evening translating Latin exorcisms. You didn't even look at us, just reached over Dean’s head to the top cupboard where you knew I kept some dried fruit and jerky, and your brother just watched you. Saw the poor boy’s face just drop wide open.” Bobby laughed as well as he could. “You boys were about the same height; you had maybe half an inch on him. But he took one look at your reach, knew you'd done passed him. Funniest thing, the way I could see on his face he was annoyed as hell and prouder than a peacock at the same time, like he grew you himself.”

Sam’s breathing was too shallow. It made Bobby take in a deep breath himself in reflex. “Dean,” he whimpered.

Bobby snorted softly. “Don't you go wasting energy you don't have worrying about that idgit. He's part cat, Sam. Nine lives at least.”

“Used...eight already,” Sam argued with great effort.

Bobby couldn't disagree with that. But he forced another chuckle. “Kid’s tough, Sam. And he knows what he's fighting for. He’ll be just fine, because he's gotta be, because you're counting on him. No nasty critter stands a chance when that boy's got you to look out for.”

“You?” Sam gritted out.

It was just like this boy to worry about his loved ones while he lay bleeding and burning up, in worse shape than any of them. “Oh, I'm real fine,” Bobby sighed. “It's Sunday, you know, and my buddy Rufus likes to say he can't work on the Sabbath, so I'm trying the same thing on Dean. Seems to be working; kid didn't argue when I told him I was gonna just rest here instead of help.”

He hoped Sam might give him a tiny smile, and perhaps he would have, but it was then that he began choking.

“Dammit, boy!” Bobby lifted him as much as he could, turning him to vomit out nothing but blood and the bit of water the old hunter had managed to pour down his throat minutes ago. The blood was too red, too dark.

“Burns!” Sam screamed hoarsely.

“I know it does! I know, Sam!”

He heaved again, and spat, and then collapsed in exhaustion on Bobby's lap with a sob. He was too dehydrated to cry, so it was all shaking and moans.

“Almighty, Dean! Where are you?” Bobby cursed.

“Burns, Uncle Bobby!” Sam hissed out.

The only tears were Bobby's now.

***

Sam laughed as he watched Uncle Bobby shaking his head at him. “I did it just like you said!” he insisted.

“I don't know what I said, but it wasn't that!” the old hunter huffed in exasperation. “Thick as a brick, and twice as dense.”

“The bread or me?” Sam teased.

Uncle Bobby grabbed hold of the loaf with one hand and knocked it on the counter. “Both!” he responded.

“I can't give that to Dean.”

His mentor shook his head. “No,” he agreed. “He's probably just fool enough to try and use it. Or eat it. No, we best start from scratch. A damn good thing you're so good at Latin and research, kid, because you're useless as a baker.”

Sam sniggered to himself. He couldn't remember the last time he had so much fun. “What's it say about my life that screwing up a loaf of white witch cake is the most fun I've had in a month?”

Uncle Bobby snorted. “Yeah. Well, screw it up, you did, so come on. That Mohegan spirit wants her cake, and she's going to keep pestering the hell out of that family till she gets it.”

“I don't get it. So she didn't get her dumb bread. Why's that any reason to haunt a place?” Sam began looking through the ingredients listed on Bobby's scribbled note again.

“Wasn't that she didn't get bread, Sam. She got tricked. Folks don't like getting tricked. Especially folks being forced off their own land to make space for a bunch of pale, disrespectful other folks. Story says she stopped at the home of a white woman as she was starving-”

“And the white woman was a witch.”

“Well, that's the story. I'm more inclined to think she was just your average bitch, myself.”

Sam snickered as he began pouring flour into the bowl.

“So the Mohegan woman asked for bread, and the lady said sure, that she had some cake she could have. Gave her some, then sent her away into the night storm. Next thing our Mohegan lady sees, there's a big rock instead of a house, and a little rock instead of cake.”

“A witch,” Sam insisted.

“Yeah. Or a pissed off little elderly Indian woman starving to death, who wandered off through a night storm starting to not see things right, because some white lady thought it'd be real funny to give her a stone when she needed food, and couldn't be bothered to help her stay out of a storm for one night. And she died in the storm. So she's been pissed a real long time, and only now that there's a family living up there again does she have somebody to take it out on.”

“Till she gets her white witch cake.”

“Keep stirring.”

Sam glanced at his original failed construction. “Why's she need a special kind of bread?”

“Why you gotta ask so many damn questions? Come on.”

It was fun being in the kitchen with the old grouch. Dean and John were on their way to pick up the bread that would appease the spirit, since she was tied to the place by a stone, which would be impossible to find and destroy. Uncle Bobby had felt certain this special recipe would do the trick, and Uncle Bobby was always right, so far as Sam could tell. He wondered if this was sort of like what other kids did with their families.

“Watch what you're doing.”

“Uncle Bobby? Did you ever...I mean, who taught you to...You make soups and stuff. Chicken. And rice. Where'd you learn all that?”

The man was busy checking everything Sam did, but he answered without looking up. “I don't know. I had a life before hunting, you know.”

Sam swallowed. How many times had he heard someone say that? Friends of John and Pastor Jim, contacts of Bobby's. “I didn't,” he murmured.

Uncle Bobby stopped. He stood back and looked at the boy, who carefully avoided his gaze. “Yeah,” he muttered finally. “Yeah, I know, kid. Here. Let me show you how.”

They worked in comfortable quiet for a long time, and Sam felt himself begin to smile again. Then it came time to put the new loaf into the hot oven. Sam cried out as the backs of his fingers brushed the metal racks. “Dammit!” he shrieked.

“What?” Uncle Bobby demanded. “What happened?”

“Shit, that hurts! It burns, Uncle Bobby! Shit!”

The older man rolled his eyes and grabbed hold of his wrist to drag him to the kitchen sink. “I know Johnny taught you first aid for a tiny burn. Idgit. You fall apart every time you get a scrape? Best not let Dean see that! There. Let the cool water run on it. Yeah, it'll blister a bit right there, but you ain't dying.” He sighed. “Looks like our next lesson for the day is natural remedies for carelessness. It's called pay attention to what the hell you're doing.”

In spite of the sting, Sam laughed. “Yes, sir.”

***

Bobby snorted himself awake just as the sun was rising. A severe frown crossed his face. “Sam!” he cried out. “Sam? Dean?”

The older of the boys hurried toward him. “Yeah. Bobby, we’re okay. We're here. You all right?”

He blinked around him in confusion. “Sam?”

Dean appeared in his line of sight above him. There was a gash on his handsome smile, but otherwise, he seemed fine. “Heya, Bobby. Thought you were going to sleep all day.”

“Where's Sam?”

He smirked. “He's fine, man. Really. Killed the son of a bitch, and got you two to the hospital, remember? I deserve a damn medal, by the way, just for getting you two heavy asses into the car. And you both bled all over the interior. Bobby…” Dean’s gruff voice softened, and he sat beside the white bed. “Man, why didn't you tell me how hurt you were? Broken leg? Bobby, that thing tore you up. Sam was so bad off, and my head was so messed up, I didn't see it. You should've told me.”

Memories came flooding back to him then. “What for?” he demanded. “You were going fast as you could go, knowing your brother needed you. I don't think knowing my guts were hanging out was gonna make you move any faster.”

Dean nodded. “Well, Sammy is in one piece. He's gotta be on that IV for a while, needed a freaking transfusion, and...and his, uh...his own blood...It don't play well with others…”

Bobby cringed, but he nodded too. “I imagine it don't. He's going to be okay though?”

“Yeah. You said yesterday before you passed out, said his blood would reach an equilibrium or something, and he'd be fine. They've got him hydrating. Other than that, they had to do some kind of saline thing for-for his eyes and...and he's going to be okay, but it might take some time.”

Realization pounded into him. “Kid can't see, can he?”

Dean took a deep breath. “Not as yet. But he will. Doc said it will take a few weeks to get it all working like normal again. Said he never saw anything like it. All the salt in his whole body, just gone.”

“Not all of it,” Bobby sighed.

“Too much of it. Doc says he's got no idea how it happened, and no clue how he survived it. Said it all came down to a stubborn will at the end there.” He grinned weakly. “That my brother or what? Jackass to the end. Who needs salt and water and blood when you got Winchester obstinance, right?”

Bobby groaned and tried to sit up. “Evidently. What's he say about me? I'm dying or what?”

Dean chuckled softly. “No, sir. You're gonna be just fine as you ever were.”

“Good. I gotta get back home. And your brother is coming with me, so as I can keep an eye on him till he can keep both eyes on his own stubborn ass.”

Relief wafted from Dean. “Kind of hoping you'd say that,” he admitted. He lowered his voice, even though no one else could hear. “You should know...Sam's been knocked out pretty good, but he's woken up long enough to call for each of us a few times.”

He winced. He hated that he couldn't go to comfort his boys.

Dean stood and moved to the door, then glanced back at him. “And he's calling you Uncle Bobby,” he added with a fondness that very few people in Dean’s life ever earned.

The old hunter smiled to himself, and closed his eyes again. “You would've loved them, Karen,” he whispered.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed the ficlet! Comments are better than cake! (Pie too, incidentally.)
> 
> ~Posing


End file.
